Talk:List of file formats

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"OGM is a shell, which enables any form of compression to be used"
Shouldn't it be container not shell? Xorx77 19:02, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, on a related note, .ogg should be in here somewhere. It normally contains Ogg Vorbis files but could contain all types of media. --Twinxor 19:46, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] MAR

What about *.mar? ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/nightly/latest-trunk/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.159.34 (talk) 13:26, 26 June 2005

It's already listed in the longer list, Alphabetical_list_of_file_extensions#M, and since end-users will rarely, if ever, have to handle .mar files directly (the software update service downloads, applies, and removes them - I think?) it probably shouldn't be on a list of popular formats. (Moz ref - Software_Update:MAR) --Georgeryp 13:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorting

I suggest we sort the categories of file formats.
Also when one adds an entry one should list alphabetically.
--Numa 02:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Clearly this has been done since Nov 2005--I just wonder now whether we oughten't further sort the page into MEDIA FORMATS, TEXT FORMATS, PROGRAMMING FORMATS, and SYSTEM FORMATS. Or maybe make a new Wikipedia page called Media Formats that deals with audio and video file extensions.
--Edtech2020 16:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Presentation

I think this info could be presented much more neatly in the form of tables. There could be column headings for file extension, file format, primary application (if applicable), and comments. Something like so:

Extension File Format Primary Application Notes
.doc Word document Microsoft Word Also used as a plain text extension by some applications
.ged GEDCOM file N/A Interchangeable file format used between genealogy programs

Someone more familiar with tables could probably do it a bit better-looking with colour coding and such like but you get the idea. Suggestions? Zunaid 10:13, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Several file formats have multiple extensions. What then, huh??? (Probably just put the most common ones in the cell, separated by commas.)--Jack Schitt 00:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Yup. I've put all the presentation stuff into "Presentation", so that it's all together and easier to find; that means that the discussion of that issue is below here, and the conclusion appears to be to have a comma-separated list of extensions. Guy Harris 01:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
More than one entry in the table could have the same extension, and an entry in the table can have more than one extension (e.g., both a.out and ELF would include ".so" as one of the possible extensions, along with ".o", although it should also list "none" as a possible extension).
I.e., something such as
Extensions File Format Primary Application Notes
none, .so, .o a.out Unix executable code Also used for object files and shared objects
none, .so, .o ELF Unix executable code Also used for object files, shared objects, and core dumps
or, alternatively, have separate entries for each extension:
Extension File Format Primary Application Notes
none a.out Unix executable code
.so a.out Unix shared objects
.o a.out Unix object files
none ELF Unix executable code Also used for core dumps
.so ELF Unix shared objects
.o ELF Unix object files
I'm not sure which of those is preferable. Guy Harris 21:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with you, the file format is the more fundamental concept. I lean towards the first representation. If there are very many extensions it could always be made multi-line rather than going too far horizontally. Next q, how do we sort them? I suggest alphabetically by format (rather than by extension) within each sub-section. Zunaid 08:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Another variant of the first representation would be

Extensions File Format Primary Applications Notes
none, .so, .o a.out Unix executable code, object files and shared objects
none, .so, .o ELF Unix executable code, object files, shared objects, and core dumps

with all of them treated as primary.

I agree that we should sort them by format, as that's the fundamental concept. Guy Harris 09:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm not the expert on UNIX, but if all three can genuinely be considered the "primary" use of that extension then they all belong under that heading. However your first table looks and reads much better, so if there's a chance of only selecting one primary application I would go for that. Two other things, if we're gonna sort by format, then the format column should be first followed by the extension. Also, IMHO it would be clearer to the reader if "none" were italicized as none, with the other valid extensions being in plain text (i.e. remove any confusion that the extension might be .none). Using the first table as an example, it would then look like so:


File Format Extensions Primary Application Notes
a.out none, .so, .o Unix executable code Also used for object files and shared objects
ELF none, .so, .o Unix executable code Also used for object files, shared objects, and core dumps


Okay, just one more point. At the moment the sub-sections are listed in what seems to be quite arbitrary order. I suggest we sort them by popularity/commonality of usage. So e.g. the video, graphics and audio formats would be right at the top, followed by the wordpro/spreadsheet stuff. The last of the "common" stuff would probably be the programming languages. The specialist stuff like CAD, accounting and other packages should be nearer the bottom, allowing the casual reader to glance over the main things without having to wade through things they might not have heard of. Zunaid 11:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
can we reopen this organization discussion? This needs something! WarBaCoN 05:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] .lnk

I want to create an article for lnk at Lnk (computing) and add lnk to the list here, but I don't know what category it should go under. Thanks. -- 201.78.233.162 16:12, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

If you're referring to the Windows "shortcut" files, then, of the current categories, the correct one would be "Other". You could, I guess, define a new category for those types of files, but the only other file format I know of that would fit into that category would be Mac OS alias files - Unix symbolic links are sort of similar, but they don't have a special file format; they have a special file system type, but the contents are just a text string containing a relative or absolute pathname of the target file.
Also, I'm not sure "Lnk" would be the right name for the page; I'd be tempted to call it "Shortcut" or something such as that, but there's already a Computer shortcut page for that, so you really would, at most, want to make Lnk (computing) redirect to Computer shortcut. Guy Harris 09:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] .SOL .torrent

Should .SOL be added? I don't know that much about it, but it should be there, right? 68.110.194.13 15:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

.torrent anybody?

[edit] MP3

MP3 is listed under Lossy Audio and Other Audio, which doesn't make sense to me. Is there a reason for this, or could someone more knowledgeable than me fix it? Rktur 00:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] .wmv

.wmv isn't on the page. I don't feel I know enough to add it. 72.66.108.13 02:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

It is there, under ASF. --Mcoder 02:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I just taught a class on file formats and needed to refer to WMV, so I added it to this list. Even if it is under ASF, it also belongs on our list of video format extensions. Edtech2020 15:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spurious Extensions

[edit] ACP -- VA - Virtual Architecture

Does *.ACP for VA - Virtual Architecture belong on this list? Tricad added it on the 4th, but it doesn't seem all that notable to me.-- Mumia-w-18 19:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aren't lists a policy no-no?

Surely this list is better found, searched, maintained, by the many sites online that are dedicated to this type of directory listing. --Mespinola (talk) 18:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:DIRECTORY

[edit] JS

Isn't JS for both JavaScript and JScript? --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson (talk) 04:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)